Abstract

This study contributes to the extant literature by empirically investigating the influence of Business-to-Business (B2B) firms’ technology readiness on information technology capability and artificial intelligence-based customer relationship management (AI-CRM) and finally, on relationship performance and social sustainability performance. We leverage primary data from 217 samples and examine the firm’s social sustainability performance. Drawing on the paradigm of dynamic capability view, we found that a B2B firm’s technology readiness has a positive relationship with information and communication technology and AI-CRM capability. Information and communication technology capability also has a positive and significant relationship with AI-CRM capability. B2B firms’ relationship performance has a significant and positive relationship with social sustainability performance. A key finding of this study is that a B2B firm’s information and communication technology capability mediates between technology readiness and AI-CRM capability. Additionally, industry dynamism also moderates the link between information and communication technology capability and AI-CRM capability.

Introduction

In this fourth industrial revolution era, data is the key to achieving success, and these data are generally large data sets mostly gathered in unstructured form (Dubey et al., 2020). Businesses have made significant progress in the last decade with the introduction of the fourth industrial revolution (I4.0) (Telukdarie et al., 2018). I4.0 technologies improve information sharing and supply chain visibility (Gunasekaran et al., 2017). Advanced information and communication technologies have taken business-to-business (B2B) firms to the next level with embedded big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capability (Bag et al., 2021, Bag et al., 2021, Bag and Rahman, 2021, Chung et al., 2021). The exploration of Chatterjee et al. (2021d) demonstrates that artificial intelligence-supported customer relationship management (AI-CRM) systems can be of paramount significance for B2B firms in this fourth industrial revolution era to remain sustainable in their respective industry. Implementation of AI-CRM also requires a combination of various resources and firm capabilities, and this can be achieved through collaboration and cooperation (Teece et al., 1997). According to Lee (2004), firms must adapt to technological changes or they will not survive in long run. Therefore, industrial firms must check their technological readiness for fourth industrial revolution technologies (Samaranayake et al., 2017). Technology readiness requires the input of several key resources to further develop information and communication technology capability (ICT) (Gupta & George, 2016).

Conclusion

Every firm considers its marketing and sales department and its customers and business partners to be of central importance because they are the lifeline of any firm. The findings of this research indicate that customer relationship management is an important activity involved in the downstream part of the supply chain where the focal firm develops relationships with industrial dealers and wholesalers and industrial customers in the supply chain network. In this fourth industrial revolution, firms are benefitting from data-driven decision-making and AI-CRM has shown huge potential in improving customer management. The literature reveals that AI-CRM can improve a firm’s performance, but the literature on developing lower-order capabilities that can be helpful in building AI-CRM capability in B2B firms lacks investigation. In addition, its connection with social sustainability has been under-researched, if researched at all. The current study provides interesting insights based on an analysis of data collected from B2B firms. The findings reveal that the technology readiness of B2B firms in this fourth industrial revolution era is positively related to AI-CRM capability while ICT capability demonstrates a partial mediating role. Industry dynamism is found to act as a contextual variable under the association of information and communication technology capability and AI-CRM capability. In addition, it was found that AI-CRM capability improves relationship performance among B2B firms, which ultimately improves social sustainability performance. In other words, firms willing to improve social sustainability performance must aim to build AI-CRM capability.